Jeff Chausse
Digital Strategy + Design
Before Child/After Child
Before Child:
- Read about a cool netbook on Twitter
- Visit website to check it out
- Get on with life
After Child:
- Read about a cool netbook on Twitter
- Visit website to check it out
- Have child see cross promotion for “Monsters Vs. Aliens”
- Visit movie trailer website
- Watch movie trailers
- Download “coloring pages” of monsters and print out
- Clear paper jam
- Clear another paper jam
- Clear another paper jam
- Curse printer under breath
- Clean print rollers
- Clear another paper jam
- Clear another paper jam
- Curse printer under breath again
- Reboot printer
- Restart printing
- Retrieve printouts
- Try to convince child to color with crayons instead of bingo-marker-type-things
- Fail
- Hang bingo-marker-type-thing-colored picture on wall
- Have child say: “I like you a lot, Daddy” and hug you
- Never actually look at netbook.
25 Things – Yes, I Succumbed
For those who don’t know, there’s a simple, but compelling meme going around on Facebook. You just write down 25 random things about yourself, then tag 25 more people to do the same. I usually avoid stuff like this like the plague, but I was intrigued, thinking it might be a good opportunity for self-reflection. It was, and I was glad I did it. For those of you who aren’t lucky enough to be connected to me in Facebook (and I don’t accept invitations from people I don’t know from real life – sorry!), here’s my list. Enjoy.
1. I once had to get stitches after a hard drive-installing accident
2. I totaled a car when I hit a jersey barrier on a highway. The car careened off the road, avoided all guard rails, buildings, and other cars – then landed in a wooded ditch. I walked away with a single scratch and what was apparently a bruised sternum, becuase it hurt when I laughed or coughed for about a year. The tow truck driver who pulled me out was amazed I survived at all.
3. Mints make me sneeze
4. I’ve moved 9 times in less than 15 years: Rhode Island to Worcester to Shrewsbury to Marlborough to Beverly, back to Rhode Island, to Allston to Salem, back to Marlborough, then to Wayland. I’m a homeowner now with an underwater mortgage, so I’ll probably stay put for a while.
5. I wrote four plays, including one monologue, which were performed by my college theatre group at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
6. Years before BitTorrent was developed, I came up with an idea much like it, which I called “CacheWave”. I wrote up about 1/2 a spec before I lost interest.
7. On a whim, I once drove to Canada just to buy Canadian candy bars, and got detained by the border agents because they thought the story was ridiculous.
8. My car once broke down in upstate New York and a I got a ride home to WORCESTER from a total stranger, who refused any payment, or even gas money, and ended up being a born-again Christian who blasted Christian rock cassettes the whole way.
9. When I was a kid I had a recurring nightmare about getting trapped in the back of a possessed car and getting tormented by the headrest, which turned into an evil face.
10. My organized sports career consisted of one summer in a farm league baseball team that placed dead last. I played DEEP RIGHT FIELD.
11. My only real regret in life is getting into extensive credit card debt in college. So many opportunities lost because I was forced to seek out high paying jobs just to break even. I still haven’t fully recovered.
12. My least favorite thing about myself is my lack of perseverance. Some things I wish I had practiced long enough to get good at when I was a kid: drawing, piano, tennis, and skateboarding. This is the one thing I’m going to be a pain in the ass about with my kids – ensuring that they stick with at least ONE thing that they can be really good at all their lives.
13. The first thing I thought when my son was born was “Where’s his face?!” It was 2:14 AM and I was getting very tired and somewhat delusional. I was focused so intently on his “crowning” head, waiting for him to finally come out… For some reason I thought he’d be coming out face up, and I freaked out for a second when all I saw was hair.
14. Since I got my current job, it’s the first time in my life when I haven’t been trying to figure out how to make my next career move. The only things I don’t like about my current job are challenges caused by my own personal shortcomings, which is a great place to be.
15. My favorite drink is a well-made mojito. Gin and tonic is a close second when that’s not an option.
16. I once waited in line behind James Carville in a Washington, D.C. Starbucks.
17. I get cranky – I mean REALLY CRANKY – when waitstaff at restaurants let my water or soda glass run dry.
18. My top 5 videogames of all time, for any system: Starcraft, Super Mario Bros. 3, The Sims 2, Super Mario 64, Half-Life 2.
19. I met my wife via online personals. I knew she was something special when she played her “Kyle’s Mom is a Bitch” ringtone for me. Little did I know how Cartman-like her personality really was.
20. The two most life-changing books I’ve read are “Getting Things Done”, and “Crucial Conversations”. I don’t exactly follow their advice thoroughly yet, but I’ve experienced their lessons deeply enough to know my life would be far better if I did.
21. The three most important life lessons I’ve learned: 1.) No one can “make you feel bad” except yourself. 2.) Don’t worry about the things you can’t change. Seriously, just don’t. 3.) Stress is caused by knowing the right thing to do and not doing it (that last one’s thanks to Larry Winget, I have to admit).
22. The most important “management” lesson I’ve learned: The first thing to do in any hairy situation is to GATHER FACTS. If you can’t drive desired change by simply stating facts, re-evaluate what you’re trying to accomplish.
23. I worked at Wendy’s one summer and permanently have the proper order of burger condiments permanently ingrained in my brain: ketchup, mayonnaise, pickles, tomato, onion, lettuce (+ small swipe of mustard on the meat).
24. I’ve never smoked a cigarette. That’s one of the few things in life I’m inclined to feel smug about.
25. I had no interest in popular music outside of novelty albums until junior high school. Then one day, I saw an “R.E.M./Green” pin on a backpack and somehow it instantly changed my life, even though I don’t think I knew what was on that album at the time. I bought the cassette and played it so many times all the writing wore off of it. R.E.M. was my favorite band for over a decade and it introduced me the world of “alternative” music, making me an outcast for the rest of my high school days. I lost interest in most music again in the late 90′s, which turned around when I heard “New Slang” by the Shins one day (yup, just like in Garden State). Suddenly, I was buying up indie pop albums left and right again.
New Baby Photos
Just a random bunch of recent pix. Enjoy.
Web 2.0 Ennui
No, I’m not going to cease blogging or anything, but I’m suffering from a bit of Web 2.0 ennui – a personal bubble bursting if you will. The sheer number of people out there who think they’re working on the Next Big Internet Thing is staggering, when 99.99% of it just involves shoving the same information around in different ways. It’s all quite overwhelming. Do I want my RSS feeds in my email? My email in my RSS feeds? Aggregated or not aggregated? Perhaps this will pass, but I’m thinking this is actually a healthy development. It’s about time I develop some offline hobbies. If I may quote my own blog post from the last time something similar happened, (as inspired by Lloyd Dobler)
“I don’t want to blog anything, aggregate anything, or syndicate anything as a hobby. I don’t want to aggregate anything blogged or syndicated, blog anything aggregated or syndicated, or syndicate anything aggregated, blogged, or syndicated, or tag anything aggregated, blogged, or syndicated. You know, as a hobby. I don’t want to do that.”
Stupid Mortgage Tricks: Voluntary Foreclosure
Stuck owning a house worth less than your mortgage, and having trouble making the payments? Selling the house won’t really help, since it won’t pay back the mortgage. Why not try “voluntary foreclosure?” Of course, you lose the house, but if you play your cards right you can actually stay in your house for 8 months or so, payment free, on top of not having to pay back the mortgage.
Obviously, foreclosure is often a drawn out process, due to laws usually designed to protect the homeowner. But a company called You Walk Away sells a $995 “kit” to help you intentionally complicate things for the mortgagor – extending your free ride as long as possible. They will then supposedly help clean up your credit rating.
Legal? Apparently. Unethical? Oh HELL yes. But the mortgage industry doesn’t exactly have a spotless ethics record, either.
John in the Snow
Wanna Work for Me?
ZoomInfo is looking for an Information Architect with usability testing experience for our growing User Experience team, here in sunny Waltham, MA. Check out the job description, and if you think you’ve got the right stuff, contact me directly with your resume (jchausse {at} gmail {dot} com). If I agree, you’ll be in here interviewing before you know it.
Retro-Plagiarism?
What do you call it when a group blog retroactively attributes your blog posts to someone else after you leave? Well, whatever it’s called, it appears Hill, Holliday decided to do this to the HHCC.com posts I made while working there, and I’m pretty sure it’s illegal, even if inadvertent.
Obviously, they wanted to prevent me from logging in after I left (a reasonable move). But, guys, you could have just changed the password, instead of attributing my writings to someone else.
I’ve copied the posts over here, in their own category – “The HHCC.com Posts“, and will shortly be in touch with Hill to have then either properly attribute the posts or remove them entirely.
Update: Hill fixed the problem pretty quickly after I notified them. Obviously, it was a technical oversight (anyone who’s used WordPress would know what happened), but any time you’re messing around with people’s right to their own ideas, some extra caution is warranted.
Flying Baby
Non-parents may as well ignore this post, but I found this random baby video on YouTube quite amusing. Seems the kid wants to skip crawling… skip WALKING, and go straight to flying. Very cute.
Kickass Band Alert
The Pipettes. Yes. Listen to them.
